Nothing orthodox about church warden

THERE’S nothing orthodox about John Johansson.

Once a month, at 8.40am on a Saturday the larger-than-life American, whose father was Swedish, turns the key in the door of a heavenly chapel adjoining the Holy Trinity Church on Father Matthew Quay, Cork, and starts preparing the room for a church celebration — the Russian Orthodox Church in Cork’s liturgy celebration.

“I’ve been doing this for so long now it’s sort of automatic what I do,” the 72-year-old and oldest practising member in the country, said about his role as church warden.

Johansson, a retired former Southern Health Board dentist, is church warden for a small Russian Orthodox Church community in Cork whose members come from all sorts of backgrounds and from different countries.

Among Christian Churches in Ireland, the Russian Orthodox Church is third only to the Catholic and Protestant in terms of numbers, worldwide it’s second. There are congregations in Dublin, Drogheda, Athlone, Belfast, Sligo, Stradbally, Limerick, Waterford and Galway.

Parishes in Ireland come under the umbrella of the Diocese of Sourozh in London which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary, a very important landmark in the life of the Orthodox Church. Dozens of parishes are scattered up and down Great Britain and Ireland.

At present there are 40 parishes, 50 years ago there was only one. Founded in 1962, that first parish began its life in the days when there was no schism in the Christian world.

For the last thousand years there have been real divisions between the orthodox east and non-orthodox west but if you go back in time there are all sorts of saints from these islands who are remembered in the Russian calendar.

So parishes like the 20-member one in Cork are really coming home in religious terms, not emigrating somewhere strange.

“There are more similarities than differences,” Nikolay Evseev, priest to the Cork diocese says.

“The name Orthodox Church was adopted after the split up with the Roman Church, the latin tradition, which happened in 1054. Until then everyone was orthodox in the pure sense. Orthodox means right belief, proper worship.

“The differences are based on cultural differences, languages, the way we lead the service, vestments, singing, chants, among other things. But there are some parallels between the Catholic mass and the orthodox divine liturgy,” Nikolay said.

Once John Johansson and other members of the community enter the gates at a heavenly little chapel, kindly loaned by the Holy Trinity and the Catholic Diocese of Cork and Ross, they are entering an iconic place spiritually.

One of the first jobs Johansson does when he arrives on Saturday morning is to prepare the chapel for the orthodox liturgy. This requires him to place icons, incense, and holy framed photographs around the chapel. “They aren’t essential, however, we do have a saying ‘the living church stands on the floor, the dead look down from the walls’. It’s a way of expressing the whole idea, particularly when communion comes, that the people who have gone before, the people who have yet to come, and us are all joined together. That’s what the whole concept of communion is.”

hauling boxes from the car and from various cupboards in a room adjoining the chapel, he gradually transforms the chapel into something that looks like an orthodox church. He is joined an hour later by Masha Falaleeva, a young, vibrant, well-educated woman, from Vitebsk, Belarus, who works in Coastal Marine Research Centre at University College Cork. A member of the small choir, she isn’t long in Cork but once she arrived immediately set about looking for a Russian Orthodox Church.

“I came here three years ago, in May 2009. It wasn’t until I lived in Amsterdam, before I came to Cork, that I really stared going to church,” she said.

Dublin-based Father Nikolay, who travels to Cork for the monthly liturgy service, says there are a lot of people in Ireland who associate themselves with the orthodox church, but who don’t go to church, but they are still his faithful. “There are still many people in Cork and other parishes that don’t know about us, both orthodox and non-orthodox.”

Over times he hopes to change that.

Having the opportunity of going to church isn’t something most young people appreciate, not so Masha. “It’s a gift.”

Fr Nikolay, who is married with three children, says a lot of people come to church to meet their friends, people who come from the same countries, for communication. “This is a great basis to start a religious life,” he says. “Every immigrant society realises that without a religious basis, it is very difficult to keep in touch with each other. Some come to church because they are lonely, some in search for jobs, trying to find people who might help them find one but others just realise their spiritual hunger,” he said.

The latest census figures highlighted just how ingrained in Irish society the orthodox community is. “It would appear that we are now the third largest christian group in the republic, after the Catholic Church and Church of Ireland with over 40,000,” Johansson says.

“It’s self-sustaining now, there are enough permanent residents, many of whom are here a good few years, own homes, — most have very good jobs, so we’re not just a group hanging on just by our toe-nails, says Johansson, who is living in Cork since 1979 when he became an Irish citizen. His wife is from Dublin.

“One of the things that happened to the Polish community here in Cork is that when the economic downturn took place they went back to Poland, that isn’t necessarily true about our parishioners because things in the Baltic states, particularly those who are Russian speakers is still very difficult, they are much better off here. Going back to Estonia isn’t an option.”

He agrees with Fr Evseev about the church’s role in the psychological and spiritual welfare of the orthodox community. “That’s quite important for an immigrant community. I’ve experienced that growing up in America where everyone, including my father, spoke broken English. For these immigrant groups the church and cultural organisations often acted as a kind of a protective shell. This, of course, was very true of Irish communities years ago, they are well established in mainstream America now, but that wasn’t always the case. “When I was growing up in the city of Boston there were Irish clubs, where they had céilí dancing on a Saturday night. Lots of immigrants would go there, it was an antidote to homesickness and that’s always a serious problem among immigrant communities. It sounds exciting just to go off to a different country. until one day they wake up and say I’m really here and I don’t know anyone and I’ve left all my psychological comforts back in the old country,” Johansson says.

“So, when you have something that’s familiar, particularly the church, which gives you a spiritual dimension and well as a social one, this becomes very important for people,” he concludes as those sitting down for the after-service monthly get-together launch into tea, coffee, home baking and a sing-song, Russian-style.